EDITORIAL: Red states keep growing

Talk is cheap, but moving is expensive. That’s why it’s worth looking at which states attract the most new residents.

Last month, StorageCafe, a listing service for storage facilities, released a study on domestic migration. Using U.S. census data, it found the top states for new residents were overwhelmingly run by Republicans.

Texas topped the list, netting 138,000 new residents. Florida was a close second with a net gain of 137,000. North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia rounded out the top five. The only blue state in the top 10 was Colorado. Arizona, which came in at sixth, might be considered a swing state, but it has a long history of Republican governance. Nevada ranked 13th, netting a bit under 19,000 new residents. That was a bit less than Idaho, which ranked 11th.

Most movers are coming from blue states. Unsurprisingly, California led that list, losing nearly 260,000 net residents in 2023. For context, the population of North Las Vegas is around 285,000. The rest of the top five were bright blue states — New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland.

Many outgoing Californians were “heading to states like Texas, Arizona and Nevada, where housing markets are far more affordable. These migrants often gain access to larger or more luxurious homes or can maintain similar lifestyles while saving significantly,” the study found.

“The winning states capitalize on a combination of affordability, economic opportunity and lifestyle appeal,” the report noted. It continued, “Many of these states also feature lower tax burdens, job growth in emerging industries like tech and health care and an overall lower cost of living.”

These results didn’t happen by accident. Red states generally have more market-friendly policies that allow businesses to succeed or fail based on their ability to meet customer demand. They place fewer regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs. They have lower taxes.

This is what makes red state economies more dynamic, which creates more jobs. Similar factors allow companies to build more housing in red states. That helps keep homebuying more affordable even as demand increases. Companies in California have the technical know-how to build housing but are often hindered by regulations that prevent or slow construction.

Yes, some of this is related to long-established migration patterns involving cold weather locales and Sun Belt states. But there is no mistaking the consequences that many Democratic bastions have brought upon themselves with their embrace of heavy-handed regulatory and tax policies and their fealty to public-sector unions. The good news for blue states is that they can reverse their decline by re-evaluating those policies. The bad news is that they show few signs of doing so.

The views expressed above are those of the Las Vegas ReviewJournal.